Budget – $70.00
Actual – $86.26

I was $16.26 over budget this week. Our savings was $15.46, which is good at least. The reason we went over budget is we made a random grocery trip on Sunday. I had to get meat for Alex’s breakfast burritos; I had to buy yogurt because the yogurt I’d bought on my last trip had three different artificial sweeteners in it, including aspartame; and we also needed eggs because we ran out after Alex made himself omelettes over the weekend. That trip was $16.07.

When I went shopping for the week this past Tuesday, I kept in mind my budget was actually only $53.93… but I just was feeling pretty exhausted when I went and was not nearly as vigilant as I normally am. I bought a lot of things that weren’t on the list, just because I felt like it. So, that’s what happens when you don’t stick with the list! That trip ended up totaling $70.19 so I was technically still within the budget, if not for that random trip earlier in the week!

Our total savings on the two trips combined was $15.46 – pretty good!

Our meals this week:

Wednesday (02/22) – Red & Green Winter Soup (Real Simple magazine recipe)
Thursday (02/23) – Lentil & Cauliflower Stew, The Gorgeously Green Diet (p. 299). I know this has been on the list for weeks!!
Friday (02/24) – Herb Sliders (a Rachael Ray recipe) and Baked Macaroni & Cheese w/ Broccoli (another Rachael Ray recipe)
Saturday (02/25) – My baby shower is this day! We probably will eat out with my family after the shower. If not, leftovers it is.
Sunday (02/26) – Oscar night! We hang out at my parent’s and watch the Oscars every year. I think we’re doing Thai takeout.
Monday (02/27) – Creamy Pumpkin Soup, Gorgeously Green Diet (p. 291)
Tuesday (02/28) – Pecan Crusted Chicken (from Rachael Ray) with Mashed Sweet Potatoes (so easy you don’t even need a recipe)

I’m sorry I don’t have any clickable recipe links this week! I save so many clipped recipes from various magazines that I felt like digging into that pile, plus trying out a few more recipes from The Gorgeously Green Diet.

Lunch has been leftovers – I made that New England Pot Roast on Monday (instead of last Thursday, like I had planned) and man is that delicious!! I don’t think I’ll get through all the leftovers by myself so I’m going to freeze what’s left. It has potatoes in it, which don’t exactly freeze that well, but it’s worth a shot anyway. I’ve also been enjoying the leftovers from the Creamy Carrot and Parsnip soup from The Gorgeously Green Diet.

Alex continues to enjoy the Loaded Quinoa Veggie Burgers for his lunch, and my breakfast tortilla concoction for the mornings. Breakfast for me has been fruit and cereal, still.

My coffeehouse spending this past week was uncharacteristically low, coming in at only $8.75. Every time I thought “I will go hit up a coffee shop!” something in my brain was like “Well, you don’t really want a drink from there. You’re just bored.” So, instead, I would drink tea at home.

This was technically my last grocery shop for the month of February (I will go grocery shopping on the 28th… but that’s as good as the beginning of March anyway, plus meals are planned until the end of the month pretty much), so that means it’s time for a monthly recap (if you missed January’s recap, click here)!

(Click image to make it larger)

According to my spreadsheet, my Year to Date grocery spending is $609.04, and my YTD savings is $137.06. That’s pretty good in the savings department!

Breaking it down even more, my average weekly total – based on the YTD totals – is $76.13. When I remove the January totals, my average weekly total for February only is $68.10. My goal for February was to spend $70.00/week so we accomplished that goal! My January average weekly spending was $84.16 so I made significant headway in decreasing the weekly spending.

Comparing month to month, in January we spent $336.64 total on groceries, and in February we reduced that to $272.40. My goal for the month of February was to spend $280.00 on groceries and we definitely met that goal with $7.60 to spare.

For March, I am not going to change our budget. Since I’m planning on making freezer meals, I’m not sure how this will impact our grocery spending so I don’t think it’s the best time to try to reduce even further. So, the budget will stay at $70.00/week and $280.00 total for the month.

To recap on my monthly coffeehouse spending for February, my goal was no more than $80.00 total ($20.00/week…totaled up by month, this sounds absolutely ridiculous!!) and I ended up spending only $32.92. Technically, there are 7 more days in February so if I end up spending anything at a coffeehouse in that time, I’ll have to update this total.

Since my spending was so low on coffeehouses in February, I’m drastically slashing the budget for the month – it’s going to be $40.00/month. This will probably result in no change on my part since I’m already under $40 for this month, but we’ll see. I’ll continue to track week by week but I’ll just subtract those totals from the overall monthly budget.

*If you’d like to snag your own Grocery Savings Tracker spreadsheet, visit Couponing 101 to download it!*

*If you want to see my other Project: Food Budget posts, click here! Or to find out where Project: Food Budget came from, click here!*

Check out the other blogs participating in Project: Food Budget –

• Emily Levenson
• Dairy-Free Cooking
• Test Kitchen Tuesday
• Red Pen Mama
• Acquired Tastes
• Fit Flexitarian
• Warm As Pie 
• Katy Rank Lev
• My Inner Healthy
• Little Blue Hen
• xox, b
• Project Food Budget 2.0
• Fresh…A New Chapter
• Two Eggs Over Easy
• That’s Just Me
• Eat Whole Be Vital
• Four Happy Violets
• Naturally {Un}refined
• Pgh Dad
• yogabeautylife
• Charmingly Modern
• naMAMAste
• Six Dollars a Day
• The Gluten-Free Vegan
• What da Health?
• Twice the Twinsanity